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For the second year in a row the Central Coast’s Community Environment Network will celebrate the year’s shortest day with a special community event.
By Jacquelene Pearson
It is a matter of medical fact that spending time in nature is good for your physical and mental health.
Unfortunately caring for the natural world means we often get caught up in all the negatives – climate crisis, habitat loss, extinctions, laws that don’t work and regulators that don’t regulate.
Moving from one crisis to the next means it is easy to forget to stop, take time out and enjoy nature – the tides, phases of the moon, changing seasons – the beauty and tranquility of the natural world.
The Community Environment Network’s nursery manager, Bes Jackson, says the idea of celebrating the Winter Solstice is intended to encourage the community to pause, gather and celebrate.
“Last year’s Winter Solstice event was a truly joyous occasion,” she said. “Community members gathered in our Wildplant Nursery at Ourimbah Campus of UoN to celebrate the shortest day of the year but simply to enjoy being together under the trees and taking time out to listen to our speakers.”
“Celebrating the change of seasons was such a success last year that we have decided to hold it again this year,” she said.
Wine and cheese will again be provided in the ticket price. Raffle tickets will be for sale. There will be local arts and craft stalls and some “fantastic speakers”.
DON’T FORGET TO BRING YOUR FOLD UP CHAIR
This is an over 18’s event due to the alcohol service.
Speakers
“Paul Craig will be joining us this year and will be preforming the Welcome to Country as well as present a short talk on the significance of the stars and moon to Guringai.
“Jackie Pearson is a poet and publisher who lives and works on the NSW Central Coast and she will be reading a selection of poems from her first collection, Mother’s Song.
Dr Robert Fuller (Bob) is a late returnee to academia after a 45-year break for a career in first, the military, and then, industry.
He was tertiary educated as an anthropologist/archaeologist, and much later, after retiring, did a research MPhil at Macquarie University, Sydney, on Indigenous astronomy, publishing on the cultural astronomy of the Kamilaroi and Euahlayi peoples of New South Wales.
He has now completed a PhD at the School of Humanities and Languages, University of NSW, researching the cultural astronomy and songlines of the saltwater Aboriginal peoples of the New South Wales Coast, under the supervision of Duane Hamacher (University of Melbourne) and Dan Robinson (University of NSW).
He has been active in outreach to the non-Indigenous community through lectures and non-academic articles and was the instigator of the successful documentary on Euahlayi astronomy, “Star Stories of the Dreaming”.
He is now an Adjunct Fellow at the School of Science, Western Sydney University, working with Dr Ray Norris, astrophysicist and early Australian cultural astronomer.
“We can wait to welcome this year’s speakers and enjoy a magnificent winter sunset in our nursery.
Buy your tickets now. Discounts apply if you are a member of CEN.
